The three-year initiative, dubbed Elevate America, comes at an awkward moment for the company.

Exactly one month ago, Microsoft embarked on the first mass layoffs in its history, cutting 1,400 people.

Nevertheless, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has continued to try to rally the public around the idea that the technology industry will be a driver of an eventual economic recovery. He also has urged Congress to support new technical skills training for the unemployed.

With Elevate America, Passman said, Microsoft wanted to do its part to help workers acquire the technology skills they need now and over the next decade.

So, Microsoft will create a new Web portal where visitors can learn what skills they lack and easily find resources to learn them.

On the site, they also will be able to access various Microsoft online training programs in order to learn some basic skills, such as how to use the Internet, send e-mail and create a resume, according to a Microsoft statement.

In conjunction with state and local governments, Microsoft also will provide a broad range of training programs and certification exams for free or at low cost.

Specifically, the company will give away 1 million vouchers so people can access Microsoft's eLearning software courses and some Microsoft business certification exams.

In an interview, Passman said the vouchers would be distributed through existing work-force development programs run by state and local governments.

"We've been working away on this issue for a number of years," she said. "This is now front and center, but there is a whole (existing) infrastructure that is focused on work-force development.

"We are plugging into that."

Initially, Washington, Florida and New York were to be the first state governments to join with Microsoft on Elevate America. But Passman said that in addition, California, Minnesota, Virginia, Delaware and Colorado signed up at Sunday morning's meeting.

She said it was difficult to calculate the cost of the program to Microsoft but described it as "significant."

"We don't know which states, how many states, which courses, which certifications," she said.

Microsoft already sponsors several programs to provide skills training and certification exams, although none is at the scale of the initiative announced Sunday.